Snow Day

Wednesday was a snow day. We got the memo about 4 hours too late. This is not to say we didn’t know about the foot of snow outside our door, or that instinctively we didn’t want to stay home. We just found out a little bit too late that much of the Emilia region followed its instinct and stayed home while we ventured out for a 4 hour journey to get to an appointment - I had a lunch meeting in Modena with two faculty members at the nutrition department of the medical school. They are acquaintances of my former boss and advisor from USC and may be my secondary affiliates for my research project here in Italy. In order to get to Modena, we left the house around 8am; after a quick cappuccino at our favorite bar, we walked 10 minutes in the snow to the bus stop in Parma, took a bus to the train station, and then waited an hour in the cold for the train to Modena, which was delayed due to the snow. Following the hour long train ride, we waited for a bus in Modena and took a 20 minute ride to the medical school, where we arrived just in time at noon. As I had planned with my contact, upon arrival I called her to let her know I was there. She said in surprise “You are in Modena???? I thought for sure you would stay in Parma with this snow. I am at home snowed in so I can’t meet you today.” Right! I should have known!!! Not wanting to be the wimpy Californian, I wasn’t going to call the meeting off for snow, but now I know that I definitely should have called her in the morning to make sure she was going to be able to get to work.

Despite what could have been seen as a wasted trip to Modena, Paul and I made the best of it after a few minutes of moping. Unfortunately we were stuck with having lunch at the hospital cafeteria as Paul had already ordered a pizza there as he planned to wait there for me while I had my meeting. The food wasn’t stellar, but I was happy to see that it was more appetizing, healthy, and civilized than what I’m used to in a typical hospital cafeteria in the States. To go with the pizza, I ordered a big plate of contorni, or vegetable side dishes, including broccoli, artichokes, Brussel sprouts, and chicory, and a small bottle of wine, which was served with a real wine glass. Then we hiked around Modena in the snow and saw the charming centro storico and the duomo and learned more about the prized balsamic vinegar (aceto) produced in the area.






Luckily my next meeting which was yesterday (Thursday), was not cancelled and I was able to get to know my primary mentor at the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Colorno, which is a small town outside of Parma. More to come about that soon. For now here are some pictures of the beautiful campus.